


The Creation Of An Awkward Situation

by Frogmen



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: M/M, but there is, completely nonsexual wires, fake tech-speak, implied PDA, spoilers for Lost Light 24 but not 25 because that isn't out yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-01 20:02:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16290854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frogmen/pseuds/Frogmen
Summary: Rewind and Chromedome run AV support and Clicker learns a thing.





	The Creation Of An Awkward Situation

The comms tower was chosen by virtue of being closest.  Rewind was just about ready to run to the next one himself, however, because he’d never seen such a mess of outdated technology.  Not just a mess of  _ outdated _ technology, but a mess of twenty different eras of outdated tech.  And not just a  _ mess _ of outdated technology, but said twenty different eras tangled into a glitch-rat’s nest that would have a less prepared mech (or perhaps one with less worryingly dulled negative emotions) in tears.

He’d sent one of the infinites for his heavy-duty bag of adapters twenty minutes ago.  In which time he was certain they could have made it to a main communication hub, but this one was already secured (and he had to concede, close enough to the hot spot to keep an eye on it.  As much as you could, a fifth of a planet’s surface.), so he satisfied himself with making an attempt to map local relay to hub-to-hub to sky-spy transmitter and so on. 

Mostly Rewind was wiping the settling dust off his visor while he laid flat on his back under the main communications console and swore under his breath while Domey, Megatron, and… Clicker?  (Yeah, Clicker, the same one from a couple weeks ago that had been acting like an osmium-age comic book hero, minus any kind of plan or mechpower to back the act up.) were making awkward conversation.  He was pretty sure he saw something move in one of the darker corners of the console.

Finally they broke the awkward “so…”’s and stiff comments about the view when a large case hit the ground outside the access panel.  Rewind propped himself up on his elbows to eyeball the space around himself more critically (something definitely moved in the shadows), and said, “so there’s not enough space to dig around in the case in here and I doubt I’ll have enough slack to be in and out, Domey, can you pass me the hydrax-octuple USB 7 splitter, a double-socket AV connector, a pseudo floppy to coax adapter, and the compressed air?”

Chromedome rolled the compressed air under the console and while he sorted through the pockets of different cables and, aghast, replied, “pseudo floppy?”

Rewind hummed an affirmation, waving away the worst of the dust and clicking open a panel of ports on his chest, “I don’t think this place has ever been overhauled for new tech.  And when they added in the lines for city security and the council-police they messed up all the partitions so you can only send a signal on one channel at a time…”

He finished slotting the cables in and called for a dozen more, before continuing, “so I think I can get around having to manually switch to every network in every city, along with the government channels, and having to wait for Megatron to finish his speech every time, by relaying all the raw output through my systems so it’s only communicating to a single channel.”

Continuing to pull the adapters as quickly as he could find them, Chromedome couldn’t help but worry, “this is a  _ lot _ though, you’re sure you aren’t overloading your systems a bit?”

“Worst case scenario- electrical tape, GBC to USB 3, USB 3 to USB 7.5- I throw my surge protectors, but that’s what they’re for.”  Rewind taped a loose bunch of wires to keep them out of his way. He realized what had been shifting in the shadows. With a certain strained calm he asked for a cup and paper.

Chromedome turned to Clicker and Megatron, “could one of you grab those?  I’m busy here.”

A couple minutes later Clicker wandered back in with an empty cube and flyer, which were snatched by Rewind’s wire-trailing arms as soon as they were within range.  There was a short scuffle under the console accompanied by Rewind swearing under his breath until he finally laughed sharply, said, “take a step or two back, Domey”, and after what he considered a fair amount of time, shoved a captured but nonetheless fist-sized cyder out from underneath the console.  

Chromedome took a second, much larger, step back and muttered, “oh Pr- oh wow.”  

“Yeah.”  Rewind double-checked the connections and paused with his hand over the first switch, “Megatron, Clicker, could one of you get that?  If I do throw a breaker I don’t want to kick it over.”

After a brief shuffling and clearing of throats Megatron moved forward and carried away the mechanimal, which was currently attempting to climb its way to freedom and neatly falling on its back when it reached the top of the cube.  

Rewind flipped the first switch.  Nothing significant yet.

The second was a healthy buzz.

Third was stronger.

...And fourth threw up a warning.  Rewind did a quick tally of how many connections hadn’t gone through yet.  He flipped them all back off and sighed, “Domey could you give me a hand? I need to borrow your ports for a second.”

Chromedome crouched outside the access panel, sliding it open far enough to wiggle his shoulders through (theoretically), he said, “sure, I’ve got an interpersonal cable, do you need anything else?  ...Any more cups?”

“Nope.  Nothing down here but dust.”

Chromedome shimmied his way through the gap and laid down.  Well, no lie, there was enough dust down here to practically consider it terraformed, after all, you could tell which eon lost pencaps were from by which layer of strata they were buried in.  Rewind took the offered end of the connector cable, and transferred enough of the 7.5’s to the side of Chromedome’s middle that he was certain it wouldn’t flip one of his breakers.  

He repeated the activation sequence and everything went through properly, it still set off a warning, but that was fine.  Rewind whistled and hollered out, “we’re connected!”

Megatron muttered an “excellent” and walked into the broadcast room.  Clicker stepped up to the console and finished setting it up to broadcast.

He paused and tilting his head down, asked, “and the channel is…?”

“The only one there once you click through, just shows up as my serial unless I customize it.  It’ll be 240p, but there’s not much more I can do without external equipment,” said Rewind.

Clicker’s hand hovered over the broadcast button as he waited for Megatron to give him the go-ahead through the window.  He leaned back a bit, “I didn’t actually know someone could use their systems like that.”

Rewind sounded a bit distracted when he replied, “like what?  It’s all hardware, cybertronian tech likes to talk to cybertronians, it’s usually easier to route different generations of tech through your own systems than fighting to connect them directly.”

Clicker leaned back further, trying to make eye contact for the sake of politeness.  He sprung back up, ramrod straight, “Oh that’s pretty- um… is that part of it?”

“No.”  Chromedome replied.

“Alright then.”  Thankfully Megatron gave the go-ahead and the broadcast began.

He hit all the main talking points, first and foremost explaining what happened and why the enforcers should stop trying to shoot them.  With a dose of flowery sentiments and pleas for anyone who knows, or is at all willing to learn how to care for sparklings to help. 

After a suitable awkward silence Rewind asked, “does anyone else feel weird about how Megatron is the one actually delivering the speech?”

Chromedome waved his hand in a “so-so” gesture, “well yeah, but this Cybertron’s more likely to trust him.  Besides he’s got that whole ‘cult of personality’ thing and we need people to cooperate fast.”

Rewind shrugged, unconvinced, “yeah but the cult of personality is what I’m worried about.”

"True."

Coughing nervously, Clicker asked, “why would Megatron talking to people be bad?”

“Well if he decides that he doesn’t want to go on trial after all, that’s a planet full of people who look up to him as a folksy hero.  More than they probably already did” Explained Chromedome.

“I- Trial?”

When Rewind replied he sounded, if not confused, then resigned to the answer, “Did he not say why he was on our ship?”

A little defensively Clicker said, “well, he was captain!”

“He was on trial for so many crimes I don’t even have time to list them, but he invoked a legal clause that let him request trial by the knights,” Rewind rattled off, “he was allowed on the ship because he convinced our current prime (well back when there was just one, of course) agreed to let him go hunting for the knights as a form of parole.”

“Crimes?”

Rewind leaned out of the console as much as he could, waving a datastick, “I legitimately don’t have time for the full narrative, as much as I’d like to whip out the slideshow, just the sparknotes on his campaign of organic genocide would take an hour-twenty.  Just plug this in, it’s got a primer on the war I cut together a while back, and a quick ‘who is’ on Megatron and a couple of his hand-picked key players.”

Chromedome added, “I mean, even if he is completely reformed, you don’t really let the guy have a whole planet when he’s all but in line for execution…”

Rewind caught view of Clicker across the room, rather dazed.  He turned back to Chromedome and mock-flexed, “well, if he tries to dodge, I’m still the one who’s come closest to killing him…”

Chromedome covered his visor and muttered, “ _ please don’t _ ” with a chuckle.

“Fine, fine-” Rewind cocked his head, “He just finished.  Clicker?”

The broadcast continued.  Rewind sighed and cut the connection on his end.  By the time both him and Chromedome had climbed out and unhooked themselves, Megatron had walked back into the room and noticed Clicker standing wide-eyed in the corner.

Megatron cleared his throat, “did something happen to him?”

Chromedome looked to Clicker’s expression of vague horror, to Megatron, to Rewind who was aggressively blasting the fifty-odd slots he had exposed clean with the compressed air.  He blurted, “he’s trypophobic.” 

He turned to Rewind and said, “why don’t we pack up downstairs with all the others?”

Rewind turned back and agreed, “yeeeaaaahhh, we better to down to the lobby where I won’t scare him any more.”

They grabbed the open, tangled bag of wires and speed-walked out of range of what was to be a  _ very _ awkward conversation.

**Author's Note:**

> Just thought it would be funny if Megatron never actually brought up why he was so insistent about the "nonviolent" angle with the 1984-versers. And Chromedome and Rewind are pretty sure it doesn't count as gratuitous PDA if they make the barest effort to break line of site.


End file.
